BLOOMINGDALE MAKES IT A CRIME TO STEAL TRASH

Tony PerriCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Scavengers no longer will have free run in Bloomingdale, the Village Board decided Monday.

The board, with one dissent, voted in favor of an ordinance barring unauthorized scavengers from picking up curbside trash-specifically recyclable items that are sorted and placed in a special container as part of a pilot recycling program.

Under the ordinance, police can arrest people stealing curbside trash set out for recycling.

The pilot recycling program, which begins Oct. 7, will encourage the approximately 1,200 residents in the southeast corner of town to separate aluminum cans, glass and paper cans into three labeled containers for a separate pickup.

The village, which will pay $1.25 per house per pickup for a year, hopes to recoup some of the money from its part of the processed recyclable material revenue.

According to the contract with Browning-Ferris Industries of Illinois, the provider of the special scavenger service, the village will receive 50 percent of the revenue generated from the recycling of materials.

Trustee Biff Behr voiced his concern that the village will lose money because people will take recyclable aluminum cans before the Browning-Ferris pickup.

''The program hasn`t even started, and I`ve seen people going through the containers,'' Behr said. Behr said he didn`t want others to profit from the efforts of those participating in the program and reduce the amount of money the village would receive, which could substantially increase the cost of the pilot program to the village.

But trustee Walt Cropper, the lone dissenter, felt that the curbside recycling program had not been thought out well.

''They (village officials) knew that these problems would be there before they even presented this program,'' Cropper said. ''This ordinance isn`t going to stop anyone. When I put out something at the curb, I expect it to be gone before the next day.

''The police have better things to do than police scavengers,'' Cropper added.